Martina Cole: The Family

Well, it would all be over soon; she had to keep it together long enough to make sure it was finally finished. She would try to ensure at least one of her sons would live long enough to understand why she had done what she was about to do. She feared her actions would make everyone hate her until the day she died. But that was a chance she was willing to take if it meant they would one day have a crack at a normal life.

1985

'It must be love, look at his hair!'

Phillip Murphy laughed good-naturedly; his father was the proverbial wind-up, but funny with it.

He knew he looked good and was attractive to the opposite sex. Women and girls had been giving him the glad eye since he was fourteen years old. It was his size; he was what his mother termed 'a fine figure of a man'. Broad shouldered, he stood three inches over six feet. His thick black hair coupled with his dark-lashed blue eyes spoke of the Irish in him. His thick-lipped mouth made him look amenable, friendly, hid the steel that lay beneath his easy smiles. He always got what he wanted, it was a mantra with him. He believed his mother's advice: if you want something, you'll get it, you just have to want it badly enough. Well, he wanted better than his parents, he wanted better than everyone around him, and he was determined to get it.

Phillip liked Christine Booth because she was clean; clean and innocent in every way. She looked at him as if he was a god, and actually to her he was the next best thing. The thought made him smile again.

His mother Veronica watched her favourite child as he grinned with happiness. She knew this was serious all right; he had never brought a girl home before, not like this anyway. He had brought them to his bed, late at night, and hustled them out with the dawn, assuming she was too dense to work out what had gone on.

This one was different. All she had heard lately was Christine this, and Christine that. But, as pleased as she was that he was in love, she also knew the girl was only fifteen years old. Phillip was twenty-one, that was a big age difference to most people. But then again, five years from now, the difference between them would be nothing. It was the 'schoolgirl' tag that she was bothered about, and there was no getting away from it. Veronica knew that Christine had to be home by nine every night – not that that meant much in the grand scheme of things, people could have a bit of the other at five o'clock in the day. Early nights didn't guarantee anything, she knew that from experience. Look at her Breda. Veronica loved her daughter but acknowledged that she had a voracious appetite for men. She worried Veronica with her attitude to sex. Breda was what they would have called 'overfriendly' in her day, these days she was just called 'oversexed'.

Veronica had met her husband at the Shandon Bells Irish club in Ilford when she was fourteen years old; he had been eighteen and working on the buildings. Fresh over from Dublin Phillip Murphy had danced with her, seduced her, and married her three years later. Her father had not been thrilled but he had come round eventually, especially once her belly started to grow, and her mother had hastily arranged the wedding to save everyone embarrassment. The priest who had married them had christened their child four months later. Her father grew to love her husband Phillip and she had been blessed with a very happy marriage and a lovely family with her three boys and Breda.

These days it was different: girls were looking older, acting older than their years, but were still treated like children in their homes. In her day, a fifteen year old was out working and looking for the man of her dreams; a father for her children. At fifteen, she was assumed to be on the brink of womanhood.

This Booth girl worried Veronica. She was from a good family, well-to-do in comparison with her lot – Catholic too, so that was a bonus as far as Veronica was concerned. But she also knew that Christine's mother was a hard-faced harridan who thought she was better than everybody else. To be fair, though, the father seemed nice enough. Veronica had been to his shop many times, and he had always been very pleasant to her.

Now her son was talking engagement rings and lifetime commitment. Veronica smiled; the way young people talked about their lives today was laughable. Not like in her day. Then, you married in the eyes of God and you took what came your way: the good, the bad and the indifferent. What else could you do? There was no divorce, not for Catholics anyway, not real ones.

Veronica Murphy surveyed her home; it was gorgeous. They had bought their council house and built an extension, so now the kitchen was huge. All melamine units and shiny work surfaces. The floor was her pride and joy, black and white tiles that looked like marble. She was proud of her home, and rightly so. In comparison to the houses around her, it was like a palace. And she had made a good dinner for them all that night. A big roast, with Irish pork and honeyed parsnips. She'd also made roast tatties like the boys loved, along with colcannon and buttered peas. The aroma coming from the oven was mouthwatering. The gravy was all she had left to do, and she knew just how her tribe liked it – thick and dark. A bit like her youngest son, God love him and keep him.

As Phillip Junior began singing along to the radio, Veronica smiled to herself again. He was smitten all right.

Christine Booth was sick of her mother's voice, it was like a constant stream of irritating nothingness. The woman talked just for the sheer hell of it. She dreamed of the day she could leave home, the day she could finally shut the front door on her mother's constant nagging. Eileen never stopped, her topics of conversation ranged from what Christine was wearing, to how she sat, to what she ate. Or more to the point what she didn't eat. Her schoolwork, her future, her lack of decorum were constant causes of criticism. It was as if Eileen hated her only daughter, was already disappointed in her at just fifteen. Every day of her life, Christine Booth had never felt she was good enough, had always felt she had failed somehow.

Even as a little kid she had been aware of her mother's determination to better herself and, in the process, better the life of her daughter, whether she wanted it or not. Christine had never felt comfortable in her own home, always had to make sure she was what her mother wanted her to be. Needed her to be. Which was polite, intelligent, hard-working and, above all, respectable. Her mother made the word 'respectable' sound so important it frightened Christine at times. All her friends wore make-up, went out with their mates and had a good time, but not her – she was monitored constantly. It was like living with a huge burden, the burden being that she must never make her mother feel ashamed of having her. But from the way Eileen talked, the way she acted, it was obvious Christine already had.

She felt that she had already let her mother down, so she always felt as though she was having to make amends, even though she had never intentionally done anything to make her mother feel like she did. As her friend Joanie said, it was her mother who had the problem, not her. It was Eileen who read filth into the most innocent of conversations, Eileen who was so convinced her daughter was already gone to the bad, as she so succinctly put it. Was it any wonder Christine lied and cheated to get away from her? All she wanted was to be a normal teenager.